to-night, or I wouldn’t trouble you.”

Martin took the shirt and left the room. The staircase was very dark, and he walked up slowly, feeling his way along the wall.

When he was about half-way up he heard a creaking on the landing above, opposite the Frenchman’s door. He halted, and, supposing that Mounseer himself had come out of his room to ask for his shirt, he was on the point of calling to him when he caught the sound of hurried but soft footfalls on the stairs higher up, and then of a door gently closed.

He went on again, reached Mounseer’s door, and knocked. At first there was no answer; but after knocking a second time he heard the sound of flint and steel in the room within, then a voice asking who was there, and at last a fumbling with the bolt.

“Ah! It is you, my young friend, with my shirt,” said the old gentleman, opening the door. “I had fallen asleep, and had to light my candle.”

“I thought I heard you on the stairs, sir,” said Martin.

“Oh no! I have not left my room. It is late, and time for your bed. Good-night. A thousand thanks!”

Martin returned to the basement, bade good-night to Susan, and went to bed. But he found it impossible to sleep. He lay tossing on his bed, worrying about the future, listening to the church clocks striking the hours.

It was some time after midnight when the stillness was broken by what seemed to be a low whistle from the patch of waste ground outside and a little above Martin’s window. The sound was not repeated, and Martin almost believed he was mistaken; but a few seconds later he was roused by another sound; a slight creaking, as if a window somewhere had been opened, then closed again.

On so hot a night anyone might open a window for air. It was the closing, after the whistle, that caused Martin to get up, go to his window and look out upon the waste ground. No one was in sight. There were no more sounds, and Martin went back to bed.

Just as he was at last dozing off to sleep he was roused by a slight sound in the house. In old buildings the stairs often creak without apparent cause, and Martin was not startled or disturbed. But a minute or two later he heard a louder sound, like wood breaking, and then shouts and the stamping of heavy feet.

Springing out of bed he rushed into the 

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